


Wild Hunt

by Ina MacAllan (inamac)



Series: Fae Universe [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Hunting, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-20
Updated: 2007-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:30:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamac/pseuds/Ina%20MacAllan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Have you ever wondered where the material to make a wand for a pureblood wizard comes from?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Luciusfqf in 2007, to the prompt: Lucius, aged 10, in Ollivander's, buying his very first wand. It is also the result of a discussion on how wizards would manage in the traditional hunting field. There are research notes at the end.

Wild Hunt  
by Ina MacAllan

_Hogwarts, Winter, 1990_

They came riding up the glen at a controlled trot, the early morning mist feathering the horses' fetlocks, the bone-white hounds lolloping ahead, noses twitching, sterns waving. The Huntsman drew rein on the smooth greensward in front of the main gates of the castle where a second group of riders and foot-followers were waiting. He dipped his antler-crowned head to the figure standing with a mastiff short-chained by his side.

"Good morrow, Hagrid. It's a fine scenting morning. I trust you'll show us the usual excellent sport?"

The Gamekeeper, whose head was on a level with that of the mounted hunter, touched his forelock.

"Mornin' Master." He nodded to the two riders who had drawn up beside the huntsman, "Your Majesties. I've done me best. Seven beasts o' venery, like the Contract sez. I hope you'll not be disappointed."

"We never have been yet," said the woman.

"Not by the hunting." Her consort spurred his horse forward, looking over the rest of the party gathered on the cropped lawn in front of the castle gates. House elves had been moving among them with steaming goblets of mulled crowberry-juice and silver stirrup cups of toddy to ward off the morning chill.

"Every year there are fewer pure-bloods who have the right to ride with the Faerie Hunt. Fewer still who exercise it." He sounded contemptuous.

His wife laid her hand on his arm. "These will not break the Contract, my Lord. They know the penalty. And the value of our continued friendship." Her green eyes raked the gathering, settling on a trio of blond heads bowed together a little apart from the main party. She was aware of the boy looking at her sideways, fascinated, and smiled a little, inwardly. Yes, there were still those who recognised the Old Ones, and who understood their obligations.

Lucius Malfoy caught the direction of his son's gaze, turned to give a curt nod to the royal party, equal to equal, before turning back to his wife and placing his hands around her slim waist to half lift, half levitate her into her horse. As she settled and smoothed her skirts over the leaping-head of the sidesaddle, he took her booted foot by the ankle and set it neatly into the stirrup before retrieving the reins of his own hunter from his son and mounting in one fluid movement.

Around them the rest of the party took it as a signal to down the last of the refreshments and mount up. There was no cap to pay at this Hunt, and no secretary to collect it, but the senior Wizards customarily paid their courtesies to the Fae rulers before moving off. Having done so, Lucius was about to re-join his family when a harsh voice hailed him.

"Malfoy!"

Lucius drew rein, his hand moving to his wand, sheathed, for the moment, in a dragon-leather case, the end plaited into a long tail that made it look as though he carried an ordinary, if ornate, muggle hunting crop. He aborted the action as he recognised the speaker.

Red-faced, though whether from the chill, the drink, or ire it was impossible to tell, Walden Macnair wrestled his heavy cob alongside Lucius's black. The man was wearing a thick plaid over his shoulder and had a heavy ceremonial falchion sheathed to his saddle. He took his role as butcher to the Faerie Hunt as licence to usurp the Master's authority, at least when their Majesties and the Huntsman were otherwise occupied.

"This isn't a children's meet, Malfoy. What's your boy doing here?"

Lucius glanced across at Draco, sitting his pony quietly alongside his mother. He was the only child present - and that fact alone should have been sufficient to answer Macnair's question. The man had always been a boor. He was fiercely jealous of his Celtic wizard ancestry, as if stagnating in the draughty fastness of his Scottish castle made him somehow superior to those who could trace their ancestry back through Roman augers and Greek sybils to the Babylonian wizard-mages. Lucius put two and a half thousand years of superiority into his reply.

"My son is here at their Majesties' invitation," he said coldly. His mount caught the tension and tugged at the bit. Lucius allowed the animal the necessary length of rein to ease its anxiety, though he almost tensed again when Macnair finally realised the significance of Draco's presence.

"I... see. I trust the boy is qualified for the honour."

Lucius gave him a look that would have curdled milk. "I do hope, Macnair, that you are not implying that I am such a poor wizard that I cannot ensure the chastity of my own son?"

Macnair, rebuffed, yanked his mount roughly away, sending froth and blood flying from its bit. "Well, he'd better not spoil the sport for the rest of us," he growled.

"Be assured, _he_ won't," Lucius murmured, moving up to join Narcissa and Draco behind their hosts.

From that vantage point he examined his son critically. The boy was excited, yes, though hiding it well. He was clearly in awe of the royal party. It was good that he should be so conscious of the honour being paid to him and to their family. With every year that passed Lucius became more convinced that the Old Ones had been right to seal themselves off completely from the muggle world all those centuries ago. And to take a hard retribution on those who sought out their secret places or meddled in their affairs.

Wizards should do the same, and soon, while there were still places where mandragora and gillyweed grew, where thestrals could breed undisturbed, and where seers could watch the star dance without the light of muggle cities obscuring their view.

Lucius touched a hand to the Dark Mark on his forearm. Ten years ago he had thought that Voldemort's ideals co-incided with his. He had been young, and naive, and wrong. Perhaps the half-wizard had enchanted him, whether with Imperious, as he had claimed, or with the force of his personality; his vision, his lies. Now it was clear: Voldemort had wanted power, for its own sake - and for himself. Power in the wizarding world, and in the muggle world. He had not even known that there were other worlds that might challenge that power - if he had ever obtained it.

No, one did not offend the Old Ones. But having them in your debt - that was a base for power...

If only his son would play his part, as Lucius himself had done over a quarter of a century ago.

_Wessex, Winter 1964_

"Father, I'm ten years old. I can't..."

Abraxas Malfoy took his son by the shoulders, forcing the boy to look up into his colourless eyes. "You are a wizard, and a Malfoy, Lucius. Never forget that. There is nothing that we cannot attempt. _Nothing_."

Lucius stared at his father for a moment, then a calculating look crossed his own features. "I... am I allowed to use magic?"

The older wizard relented. "For this, yes, though of course you will not be permitted the use of a wand. But I am not bringing you to this unprepared. Remember your lessons. You have skills that even the Fae do not. And you will not be alone. This is a proper hunting party. There will be experienced wizards alongside the Fae. Did you think, son, that I would send you alone into danger like some muggle in a bard's story?"

Lucius shook his head, although that had been exactly what he had been thinking. His nurse had delighted in such bedtime stories - the muggle who slew a giant, the witch and the sea-serpent, the wizard who spoke with dragons...

"And it is a very _old_ dragon," Abraxas Malfoy continued, as if he had picked up the boy's thought. "Probably riddled with the pox and therefore unlikely to be able to produce flame. And slow..."

Lucius had not been wholly reassured, but he had been able to mask his unease from his father - and from the Faerie huntsmen who had gathered to chase the rogue dragon to ground.

 

It was a long hunt, but eventually the hounds checked at the foot of a steep escarpment. The ground here was scorched from countless fires and a thin stream of smoke issued from a narrow fissure some twenty feet above the valley floor, drifting up to mingle with the high wisps of cirrus blurred across the winter sky. The quarry had been run to earth.

Lucius tilted his head back to look up at the entrance to the dragon's lair. Thus far the chase had been no different from the normal fox and stag hunts that met on his family estate, but a cornered dragon, even an old and infirm one, would be much more dangerous than a fox.

Around him the Faerie huntsmen were readying their spears, the wizards drawing their wands. He turned as Abraxas Malfoy rode up beside him.

"Will they send in dogs to flush him, father?" he asked.

The older wizard shook his head, his expression unreadable against the light. "No. A dragon will come out of its own accord for..."

"For virgin bait," completed a new, harsh voice behind them. The Faerie huntsman pushed his mount between them, reaching out to catch the rein of Lucius's pony as it made to swing away. "Malfoy," he continued to Abraxas, "is the boy ready?"

It was the tone that raised Lucius's ire. No one should speak to a Malfoy like that - still less to his father, to imply that they were less than ready to honour whatever pact had been entered into here.

"I can answer for myself," he spat, causing the horn-crowned dark head to swing round with an expression of shock on the haughty features, as if one of his own hounds had answered in human tongue.

"I'm ready. What do I have to do?"

"Climb to the cave entrance. Call the beast out. It will answer to your summons."

"And then?" Lucius met the midnight blue eyes steadily. He was a Malfoy. His father had taught him never to go into anything without fully understanding the consequences of his actions - or without safeguards.

"Then we destroy it." Abraxas lifted his wand, the bloodstone-set ebony shaft deadly as a rapier.

Lucius swallowed nervously and nodded. He had seen what that wand could do and longed for the day when he had his own wand to enforce his will. Well, his father had made it clear that his future depended on his actions here. If he survived. He slid from his saddle, willing his knees not to give as his feet hit the burned grass. He was hyper-aware of every eye on him as he walked to the edge of the scarp and began to climb.

The rock was limestone, rough and affording easy foot and handholds, not so different from scaling one of the gnarled trees on the estate. It took him less than ten minutes to reach the ledge that gave on to the cave entrance.

Call the beast out, the huntsman had said, but how did one call a dragon? Lucius licked suddenly dry lips. His father should have told him... then he recalled this morning's talk. Remember your lessons, his father had said. And he remembered the hour spend every day for the past year pouring over the texts in the hidden section of the Manor library, learning the hissing sibilants of the serpent tongue from manuscripts reputed to have been written by Salazar Slytherin himself.

Lucius put his back against the rough rock beside the cave entrance and softly, to ensure that he had got the words right, whispered: _Sussuras es as shaarah?_.

"Dragon, are you there?"

He had spoken so softly that he had not expected the long hiss, accompanied by a double puff of superheated steam that issued from the depths of the fissure in response. He did not even need to translate it as an affirmative.

He swallowed nervously and spoke more loudly, commanding in the tone he had learned to use to summon the house elves. "Then come out to me." It was a challenge. And it was answered by a rattling rush of scales over stone, of clattering claws and a belch of blue flame from the opening before the sinuous length of the winged serpent hurtled out of the cave with all the speed and power of a muggle train emerging from a tunnel.

It was so close that he could feel the heat of its body. The tail cracked like a whip only inches from his head as the beast flung itself from the edge of the cliff, spread its wings and circled to hover above the valley. Lucius pressed himself back into the rockface, willing himself to invisibility. If he had a wand... if he could apparate... if he even had his broomstick...

Green fire crackled up from the valley floor, wreathing the reptile in lightning bonds. The beast roared as Fae spears followed the spell-fire. Most clattered futilely against the armoured hide but one, missing its mark completely, struck the rock face only inches from the young wizard. For the first time since his father had told him about this task, Lucius felt fear. And cold, Malfoy anger. Oh, the _dragon_ wouldn't harm him; but a clumsy fae with no hunting skills and the aim of a Hufflepuff Beater had come close to crippling him. He yanked the spear from the rock with a strength born of his fury, and edged along the ledge towards the only shelter available - the entrance to the dragon's lair.

 

The fissure that formed the cave entrance was open to the sky above for the first few yards of its length, and Lucius had enough light to see the scale-smoothed walls, and to avoid stepping on the debris of dragon-prey scattered underfoot. Soon, though, the passage curved, and the light dimmed. Lucius paused, probing the way with the butt end of the spear while he considered.

There were spells to make objects shed light which did not require a wand. He knew the incantation that his nurse had used to make his toy dragon glow gently to banish his night fears when he was a toddler. Though his Father had banished both nurse and night-light when he was five, he still used the dragon to illuminate his illicit under-the-bedcovers reading. Now all that he needed was an object to enchant.

In the gloom his spear knocked against something that gleamed and gave off a metallic chime as it rolled. Neither bone nor stone. He bent to pick it up, casting the glow-charm on the object as he did so. It was heavier than he had expected, and smaller - a solid piece of metal that fit neatly into the palm of his small hand. It was probably a part of some long-dead would-be-dragon-slayer's weaponry, but now it served his purpose perfectly. Holding the glowing silver serpent's head before him, he moved slowly along the length of the passage to the heart of the dragon's lair.

Barely two hundreds yards further in the faint glow of his charmed light was overwhelmed by a golden haze reflecting along the edges of stalactites curtaining the entrance where the tunnel opened out into a larger cave. Lucius grasped the spear more firmly in his right hand, held the light aloft, turned the corner - and came to an astonished halt.

He had not seen so much gold heaped in one place since his father had allowed him to glimpse the contents of one of the Malfoy vaults at Gringotts. But that had been coin and ingots neatly piled. This was treasure. The witchlight of the cavern was softly reflected back from a thousand polished gold surfaces. Never mind the dragon (his father would have said "Sod the dragon", but Lucius had been firmly reprimanded for swearing and now no longer did so, even in his head), this was worth the fear and the pain: an old dragon's hoard amassed over centuries. There were jewels, and cups and plate, and armour, most of it still adorning the skeletons of the knights who had dared to face the dragon in centuries when it had been younger and faster. There were female skeletons too, clad in cloth-of-gold, crowned and hung with necklaces.

Virgin sacrifices. As he had been - would be, if the huntsmen failed to bring the beast down.

 

He was suddenly aware of a concatenation of sound from beyond the cave mouth - the shouted spells and the hunting horns of the fae overwhelmed by the roar of the cornered dragon. Then sound cut off, and scent - the stench of sulphur - blossomed into the closed space of the cave.

Wounded, the dragon was retreating to its lair. Through the only entrance.

Lucius did not panic. Malfoys do not panic. But he swallowed fear. Again his father's words echoed in his mind: _remember your lessons_.

He had been hunting since he was old enough to sit on a pony, had seen enough death already for several lifetimes. His actions, as the air in the cave became more foetid at the approach of the beast, were ingrained by custom and training. Lucius whispered _Finite Incantatem_ and slipped the extinguished silver serpent head into the pocket of his coat. Then he moved out of the cave to the point where the tunnel narrowed, The dragon would have little room to manoeuvre here, and would not be expecting a trap.

He scanned the uneven floor of the tunnel, identifying a ridge of solid rock against which he set the butt of the spear, angling it upwards and holding it just below the crosspiece with a hand that trembled only slightly.

And the dragon came.

Fire blossomed across the cave roof, half-blinding him after the gloom and illuminating onrushing claws and scales. Then the creature was above him, talons spread, neck arched, chest exposed - running straight onto the head of the spear, impaling itself with its own weight and momentum.

Blood sprayed from the wound, spattering everything. Lucius scrambled back out of the way as the beast roared, reared, and snapped the shaft of the embedded spear... And then he heard his father's voice scream the Death Curse and green light wreathed the writhing serpentine body.

The dragon fell, skidded a few feet along the rocky floor, and was still.

"Lucius!"

The boy opened his mouth to answer - and gagged on the stench of brimstone and blood. By the time he had breath to respond his father had clambered over the curve of the broken wing and seized him by the shoulders.

"Are you hurt, son?"

Before he could answer his father's query there was a searing flash of spell-light. Then, with a thunderous roar, the roof behind him shook free of the bedrock and came crashing down in a rush of stone and stalactite to block the entrance to the dragon's nest.

When the dust cleared Lucius realised that the beast's death had ended whatever spells sustained its lair, and that he was the only living person who knew what treasure lay behind that seal. He could not resist a smug smile as he belatedly answered Abraxas's question. "I'm fine, Father. But I think that we had better get out of here"

It was Connaught Macnair's voice that replied. Falchion in hand, ready to eviscerate the quarry, he had followed Abraxas to witness the kill. "The boy's right, Malfoy. Let's move."

Abraxas froze the butcher's hand with a hex. Before he could do more, or Macnair could react, the light from the mouth of the fissure was obscured by a horn-crowned silhouette. The Huntsman briefly surveyed the sight of the dead dragon, and the three wizards. Then he raised his horn to his lips and blew the triumphant notes of the _prise_. As the last note died away he stepped into the passageway and nodded to Macnair.

"It was the boy's kill, butcher. He has the honour of the blood." The autumn-gold eyes turned to Lucius. "And the gratitude of the Fae."

Abraxas gave a short bow, and held out his hand. "Your blade, Connaught."

With a snarl the Scotsman tossed him the falchion. He caught it one handed, and Lucius realised that the blade must have been enchanted as his father took off the dragon's head with a single stroke. A second cut gralloched the beast and Abraxas plunged his hand into the entrails to pluck out the bloody heart.

"My son's kill, Macnair. He will take the heart."

 

_Diagon Alley, Spring 1964_

The bell jangled as the door of the wandmaker's shop opened to a blast of elf-magic. The proprietor looked up, surprised to have a customer this early in the year. Then he recognised the visitor, and the timing was explained.

Ollivander peered over his glasses, schooling his expression to one of sympathy. The _Prophet_ had reported the demise of the patriarch of one of the Wizarding World's most influential families at length. Dragon pox was a rare disease, and the circumstances in which Abraxas Malfoy had contracted it were well known. He had been expecting this visit.

"Ah. Young Master Malfoy. Starting at Hogwarts this year, aren't you? You'll have come to buy your first wand then."

The boy looked at him as if the wand-master was something nasty that he had just scrapped off the sole of his shoe. "_Mister_ Malfoy," he corrected. "And I have come to _commission_ a wand." He reached up and set the silver-bound ebony casket that he had been carrying onto the counter and, hands freed of their burden, beckoned forward the house elf who lifted a length of wood, twice the elf's height and the thickness of its wrist, to lean against the counter.

Ollivander reached out a hand to the box, then halted and met the boy's eyes. Lucius nodded assent and the wandmaker unhooked the latch and threw back the lid. He was aware that the boy was watching for a reaction and, used to dealing with generations of Malfoys, the old man managed to suppress his natural instinct to recoil from the bloody, still-pulsing dragon heart that filled the box.

"Dragon heartstring," said Lucius. "For the wand core." He lifted the length of wood from the floor and set it beside the casket with a thud. "And elm for the wand itself. My parents planted this sapling to celebrate my birth. It is unique. You will use it to make a wand, and thread it with the dragon-heartstring. You will return any surplus to me. There will be no twin to _my_ wand, core or wood. Do you understand?"

"Are you sure you just want a wand?" the wandmaker asked. He ran a hand down the rough bark of the timber. "There is enough here to make a wizard's staff."

Lucius curled his lip in contempt. "I need a wand for Hogwarts," he said. "It's only Durmstrang students who are permitted staffs. If you can't find an appropriate use for the surplus make sure it's returned to me. It might make a good broom-handle."

Ollivander forbore to point out that first year Hogwarts students were not permitted their own brooms either. The Malfoys had never considered that the rules applied to them. He caressed the wood again. Elm. A treacherous tree, liable to fall without warning, destroying everything in its path. A fitting symbol for a family whose very name meant treachery. But the materials were good, and he was an artist as much as a craftsman. He would make something of this that the wizarding world would not soon forget.

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. 'bone-white hounds' - traditionally the faerie hunt has 'red-eared' white hounds, but JKR states (Fabulous Beasts) that Nogtails (a form of magical boar) must be hunted by pure white hounds ("The nogtail is very fast and difficult to catch, but if chased off the farm by a pure white dog it will never return.")
> 
> 2\. 'antler-crowned head' - an attribute of Herne, Windsor Park huntsman to Richard II, who, following a hunting accident, was provided with his stags horns as a consequence of being magically cured of his injuries by the wizard Philip Urswick. (Genuine folklore - I am not making this up...)
> 
> 3\. 'Seven beasts o' venery' - traditionally there are only "Fowre maner beestys of venery" (hart, hare, boar and wolf), I have added the nogtail (see 1 above), unicorn (considered by medieval bestiaries as a legitimate quarry, but not assigned to 'venery or chace') and dragon to make up the magical seven. Hagrid clearly takes his duties as gamekeeper to the Hunt as more important than school rules about rearing dragons...
> 
> 4\. Lucius' sheathed wand/muggle hunting crop - I know JKR capitalises Muggle (and Father, and Son) but there were just too many caps in this story and some had to go. BTW, this is probably a good moment to point out that this story is based on book-canon Lucius - you may have a mental image of a snake-headed riding crop, I couldn't possibly comment...
> 
> 5\. Macnair - I swear that I'd written Macnair as the hereditary butcher to the Fae Hunt intending to go back and check for a suitable DE to include here - I must have absorbed more canon than I'd expected, Macnair being the Ministry 'butcher of unwanted hippogriffs' in PoA.
> 
> 6\. Falchion - Medieval single-edged sword - originally a butcher's knife, as here.
> 
> 7\. "the Old Ones had been right to seal themselves off completely from the muggle world all those centuries ago" - modern studies of folklore generally date the loss of fairy beliefs to the 15C (despite sightings by muggles as late as Cottingley in 1917). I confess to slightly usurping another prompt in musing on Lucius' motives for joining Voldemort - and his own pureblood agenda.
> 
> 8\. Wessex - Wiltshire isn't particularly dragon-friendly country - Wessex, however, has a tradition of dragon-sightings, and the symbol of Wessex is a wyvern. I needed limestone country...
> 
> 9\. "Will they send in dogs to flush him.." - Yes, I do know (and so does Lucius) that hunts refer to the dogs that chase the quarry as hounds - but terriers, lymers and mastiffs are 'dogs'- and for a dragon I'd suggest the latter.
> 
> 10\. "the incantation that his nurse had used to make his toy dragon glow gently" - Presumably 'Lumos'.
> 
> 11\. "glowing silver serpent's head" - See Note 4 above...
> 
> 12\. "Gralloch" - The action of gutting a deer in the field prior to transporting it home. In deer hunting the gralloch/entrails are normally fed to the hounds - dragons is different.
> 
> 13\. "Dragon pox" - Draco says (HBP) that his grandfather died of dragon pox - now we know how he contracted it...
> 
> 14\. "It might make a good broom-handle" - NOT a cane - definitely not a cane (see Note 4 above).
> 
> 15\. "Something the wizarding world would not forget" - See note 4... Oh all right. If you insist.


End file.
